>at one stage all these machines were
>sold as full fledged desktops (and only 10 years or so ago). So what's
>happened that makes them less useful than that now? I'd really like to
>know.
Nothing.
There were less people using them then, and they were trained (often
self taught - because they were motivated).
There is now a common belief (false, in my opinion) that either less
training is required for Win interfaces or that this represents
a common standard that people are already trained to.
Users versed in a text mode interface would probably have a better
understanding of what's going on.
The two next steps are to be able to use a command line
interface and a text editor.
> Maybe the problem is that the only people willing to poke around with
> old hardware are geeks
Partially. Training is the key. Because of common misconceptions
the only widespread training of this type is self taught, i.e.
only highly motivated individuals, which is where the geek label
is probably right.
> This seems to be a problem of education to me
Bang on the money. And how do you convince people this sort of
education is worthwhile? Well, one way is to provide it within
the framework of
* this is how you can understand computers much better
* this will lead to more advanced knowledge
* you will use computers in a much more effective (productive!)
way.
Like I joked before, "Text Mode Certified User".
Maybe a lab devoted to training Linux users in text mode only.
Jamie
--
SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/
More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
